Suffocate
by Liz's Dystopia
Summary: what would you do if you were a rogue ninja with no memory of your past or life? what would you do if you were being hunted down by the Akatsuki clan? What would you do if everyone wanted you to not remember anything? Take a look through this ninjas eyes
1. Prologue

**Suffocate**

Prologue

* * *

The moonlight hung high above her head while she's running viciously through the woods. Her feet were heavy and her right side of her body was soar and painful. She knows that the farther she ran, the farther away she became from him. He has been haunting her mind, her dreams when she slept, and her every thought of escape. He has prevented that, and still she wonders like a lost and confused animal. Suddenly, her body became weak, and she fell to her knees. Darkness has been following her for years, and at last, she can escape from it. As the shadows crossed over her eyes, she felt her body hit the hard, cold ground, and she could hear the distant thunder, and the last thing she felt were the rain drops falling from the sky and landing upon her...

* * *

She awoke in a dark room, her head hurting, and somehow it felt like she was spinning. When she stared into the darkness, she somehow remembered a pair of crimson eyes watching her, waiting for her to wake up. She questioned herself, trying to prevent herself from falling asleep, knowing he would be there to rape her mind once more. But somehow, the blackness comes and goes, and she awakes to the light of the sun streaming through an open window, and to the sound of an excited voice.

"Are you alright?"

She sat up and spoke, but she was surprised to see a boy smiling at her. His wild, spiky blond hair matted around a metal and black head band with a leaf symbol carved in the center. His wild blue eyes seemed to scan her, and she noticed three lines cut across his face to resemble whiskers. He looked so strange, yet somehow...familiar.

"Are you alright?" he asked again. She didn't know how to answer, so she rubbed her arm, which she noticed was bandaged. How did she get this way? She didn't remember anything, and everything before she woke up was a blank. She turned to the boy...

The boy approached her and smiled.

"Hi, I'm Uzumaki Naruto. What's your name?" he spoke, brushing back a few black strands of hair from her face. She thought hard of her name, which somehow, she must've forgotten, and then a flower came to mind. A beautiful flower, falling from the trees.

"Micamura Rika," she spoke. The boy smiled, and notices the girl's silver eyes and the cold, blank stare that they held, similar to snow.

"It's nice to meet you, Rika!"

She smiled, but a sharp pain started to spread from her right side, and she winced in pain. What was going on? What was happening to her? Where was she?


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter I

* * *

The pain in her right side seemed to pierce her mind, and she let out a groan, clutching her arm. She keeled over, and the boy, Naruto, began asking frantic questions.

"What's wrong with you?"

"What's happening!"

"Do you need help!"

She tried to answer, but the pain becomes unbearable, and she couldn't speak. She clutched her arm, and as the pain increased, she opened her eyes to the room and noticed something was wrong about it. Something black was stretching across the walls, and Naruto was cowering by this as piercing, red eyes appeared in the black surface. She whimpered as the pain increased, and she let out a scream of pain. As she screamed, an air-splitting screech echoed from the black surface, and a billion hands crawled from it, stretching out and grabbing Naruto.

"HEY! WHAT'S GOING ON!" he yelled with fear as the creatures pulled him into the wall, and, ignoring the seering pain, the girl jumped from the bed and made the symbol of a raven with her fingers. As Rika did this, she began to chant, and the creatures released him and fly back into the wall, crying and screeching horrible sounds. Naruto fell to the floor, twitching in fear, his face pale and eyes wide.

"What the hell just happened!" he yelled at her.

Rika let out her hand to help him up.

"It's the shadows. They thought you were harming me..." she muttered low and softly, and he looked at her confused. But then another voice spoke from the doorway of the room.

"Is everything okay in here? I heard someone scream!"

Rika looked up to see an older man standing there, his wild, light gray hair flowing over his own metal headband with the leaf sign on it. His left eye was covered by the headband. He looked from her to Naruto, and then back.

"Was that you that screamed?"

Rika didn't answer his question, but the pain shifted back into her body. She winced, but ignore it as the man approaches her.

"What is your name?" he asker her. She gave a smug smile and responded.

"It's always common curtesy to give your own name."

He was taken aback by Rika's comment, but spoke.

"Very well. Hatake Kakashi, at your service." He held out a hand.

"Nice to meet you. Micamura Rika."

She took it and shook hands, but pulled away firmly. Something about this guy she didn't trust, but then again, Rika remembered that she was a stranger, and that they didn't trust her, either. But then a question that had been antagonizing her this whole time came up.

"Where am I?" she asked.

Naruto spoke before Kakashi could.

"You're in my room. I found you outside the village gates during training. It had been raining that day, and you were unconscious. It seems you've been out there for days," he explained.

"Really?" she asked. "What village is this?"

"The Konoha village, the village hidden in the leaves," Kakashi spoke. Wow, Rika was so far away from home.

"What rank are you?"

She looked up at Kakashi, surprised to hear the question.

"Hm?"

"What ninja rank are you? Your headband."

She subconscious touched her own metal headband, and distinctively remembered what he was talking about. It had been a long time since she told anyone what rank she was.

"Oh, I'm a Jounin, but I somehow became an A or S-rank shinobi. I forgot."

"WHAT!"

Apparently, you had surprised them with what you said.

"You're...an S-Rank Jounin? But you're barely the same age as my students," Kakashi spoke to her.

Rika blushed at this, and didn't know how to explain it, because she didn't remember much of what her past was like. She smiled at Kakashi, though, surprised by the look on his face. Why was he so surprised? Were all ninjas under the age of eighteen stuck in their chunin level?

"Why? What's wrong?" Rika couldn't help but ask.

Naruto and Kakashi exchanged looks, and then Kakashi appeared like as if he was smiling under his mask.

"We better go. We're already four hours late. Sakura is going to kill me," he complained.

She looked at Naruto, and asked, "Is he always late?"

"All the time. And sometimes he lays it on too thick!" Naruto laughed.

Rika tried to smile, but something is bugging her. She remembered running away from something. Running away into the darkness, where she could hide...running from something that would hurt her...

"Rika!"

"Huh?"

She looked up at Kakashi, who was already out the door.

"You coming?"

She nodded and followed him and Naruto out of the building, and down the street to meet two other chunin ninjas...

* * *

As the three approached a large bridge where a large river flowed under, Rika saw two young kids standing on it, waiting for them. One was a young girl with shoulder length pink hair and green eyes, while the other was a boy with black, wild ravenous hair and dark eyes. The boy looked quite handsome, but he's not quite Rika's type. As she approached the bridge, the boy noticed her. She stopped abruptly, seeing a familiarity in his appearance, but she didn't remember from where. He approached her, and spoke in a calm, cool voice.

"Who are you? You're not from this village."

He pointed to the headband on her forehead.

"My name is Micamura Rika. I come from the Village Hidden in the Shadows, the Barakouge village," she spoke. (A/N: I made that up, as an FYI).

The boy grunts in acceptance, but then spoke again.

"I've never heard of that village."

Rika said nothing, but looked at Kakashi, who had just walked onto the bridge.

"Sorry we're late. We were trying to save a cat from a tree..."

"YOU ARE SUCH A LIAR!" the pink-haired girl yelled, startling Rika. She noticed her talking to Sasuke, and started to fume at the ears.

"Hey, who are you!" she demanded.

"Micamura Rika," Rika spoke again. "But who are you two?"

"Oh, I'm Haruno Sakura," the girl spoke.

"Uchiha Sasuke," the boy spoke. She nodded, and then looked at the water.

As she stared at it, she noticed a strange shadow forming in the surface. The shadow than formed into the reflection of another being...matted black ravenous hair...crimson, piercing eyes...a black and red-cloud-painted kimono...a Konoha leaf headband with a cut along the center...the being smiled evilly at her, and she gasped and jumped back, ready to feel a blade pierce her skin...

Rika jumped back, and accidentally hit someone behind her with her elbow. They let out a moan, and she turned to see Sasuke there, clutching his nose where she had hit him.

"Goddamnit! What the hell was that for!" he yelled at her.

"I'm so sorry! You scared me!"

Rika felt her heart beating vigorously in her chest. Sasuke looked so much like him, it was an honest, yet horrifying mistake. In her mind, she can't forget him. She knows he has hurt her for so long now, he had become a part of her. There's nothing she could do. He is there. He's inside her, watching her, waiting for her to fall. There was no way to escape from him. He'll find her. He'll kill her. And when she finally realized it, he was already there. She noticed the fan on the back of Sasuke's shirt, and she gasped when she realized that he was one of them. He was related to him, and that meant that eventually, he would find her.

She stepped back from him, and ran towards the end of the bridge, terror striking every nerve in her body. Rika ran away from them, and she ran into the woods. She tried to run away from what she thought was him. As she came into the shadows, something caught her off guard, and she fell back into a tree. She looked up to see what it was she collided into, and saw it was a boy with wild, unruly red hair, and piercing, green eyes. He glared at her like a basilisk, and she then felt like she had just met a demon...


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter II

* * *

Rika cowered in the presence of the stranger, but then she realized this wasn't right. Shinobi were not meant to cower before any situation. Inside, she knew that she wasn't really scared of the stranger, but of another. She stood up before the stranger, ready to face him, but he smiled evilly at her. 

"You should watch where you're going," he spoke to her.

"Forgive me. I was running from something," she explained.

"You're not supposed to run from anything. Shinobi don't run at all from what they fear," the stranger spoke.

"Of course. The way of the ninja. Emotions mean nothing," she responded, and the stranger became impressed with her knowledge. He noticed the headband she wore, and his eyes widened slightly.

"The Barakouge village? You're from there?" he asked.

Rika nodded, and she noticed his own headband falling from the strap of his load. The symbol...was that of the Village Hidden in the Sand. He was from there. That was extraordinary. If there was anything Rika remembered, it was of reading much information about that village, and her evil smile was soon shown.

"Who are you?" she asked him, and she couldn't help but instinctively reach for her kunai knife at her right leg's side. He did notice this, but speaks his name.

"Gaara of the Desert."

"Pleasure, Gaara. I'm Rika," she unsheathed the knife, and he immediately saw it.

"Do you plan on fighting me? How foolish," he spoke to her in an almost eerie convidence.

"Oh, surely, no. I just want to see how powerful one is from the Village Hidden in the Sand. After all, aren't you the son of the Kazekage of the village?" she spoke slowly to him. "I just want to see how powerful you are."

"Heh. I'm far too powerful for you. I don't need to prove anything to you," Gaara spoke, waving a hand in her face to silence her.

"Are you sure about that?" she spoke evilly.

She smiled, and suddenly, black figures shot out from the ground, shadow-beings with piercing crimson eyes. They reached up and grabbed the now startled Gaara.

"WHAT'S GOING ON!" he cried out in fear as the beings pulled him onto the ground.

His pale face grew even paler, his eyes widened in fear, and he realized what was going on as he started to gasp for air. At once, she felt like she was losing control, and she saw the horror in his face. She was killing him, and that's not what she wanted. He stared at her in chilling terror, and she shut her eyes tight, forming the symbol of a raven upon her fingers. The shadows let out a horrible, blood-curdling screech as they released him. She fell to her knees, shaken by her own actions, but smiled at Gaara reassuringly. However, that smile faded when Gaara fell onto hands and knees and retched up...blood! A few moments where he retched and coughed up blood, and then a few seconds of silence after before he wiped it from his mouth and spoke. His body was shaking, but he looked up as if he had just experienced the greatest sensation to ever exist.

"No one's ever made me cough up like that without force. You really are from the Barakouge village," he spoke.

"Yes, I am."

Rika looked into his green eyes, and approached him. The sunlight reflected off of her kunai knife, and she raised it over the boy, positioning it in a deadly manner. The boy looked up at her in fear, and she could see her own reflection in his green eyes. She brought the knife down, and the boy shut his eyes, hoping to feel the knife pierce his flesh, but he heard a screech beside him. He looked to see that she had killed a poisonous snake that had been ready to strike. Rika let out her hand and helped Gaara back onto his feet, but he looked at her, confused, and slightly scared.

"How are you able to control them?" he asked.

"Hm?"

"Shadows, darkness...How are you able to do that?" he asked again.

She answered softly to him, as honestly as she could.

"It's a kekai genkai. My family goes back into an ancestry of kagemusha, shadow warriors and controllers. I've inherited, I guess, from my family's bloodline," she explained. "It's no different from sand controlling that you have."

Gaara looked at her, surprised to see such power in her, and then questions more.

"But...there's only one family in all the nations who can do such a thing. Are you a Micamura?"

She nodded, and his eyes widened once more.

"That family has been eradicated for years. Oh, my God!"

She lowered her eyes from the boy, hurt by what he said. She spoke to the boy, and he hears her tone at once, and then quickly changes the subject. She thinks of Kakashi and Sasuke and how she ran off without an explanation from them, and wondered if they were curious of where she went off to. She looked at Gaara, knowing that he must have a team waiting for him, as well, and smiled at him.

"I need to go. But it was nice meeting you," she spoke before turning away and walking back towards the bridge.

She could hear him walk away, and then stopped briefly as the wind surrounded her. It cooled her down, and relaxed her a little. A strange memory came to her mind. She somehow saw herself standing in a dark room, bowing to someone, an then turning away, but only to feel the fall of a blade to her shoulders. She screamed in pain, and fell to her knees, only to find herself back at the Konoha village. She shook off the feeling of the memory, and walked onto the bridge. She stared down at the water, deep in thought, when she sensed someone else there. The reflection of someone appeared beside hers, a young boy with long, blackish brown hair and piercing, silver eyes, like her. He stares at the water, and then at your reflection before smiling.

"You know, I thought no one was here, so I came here to be alone," he spoke coldly at her.

She shrugged, turned, and began to walk away, feeling alone and downtrodded, when the boy called back to her.

"I was just saying. You don't need to leave," he spoke.

"No, I need to find some people, anyway," she tried to lie. But he called to her again.

"What village is that?" he asked.

She turned to him, and he pointed to the symbol upon her headband. She answered.

"The Barakouge village, the village hidden in the shadows," she answered. He nodded.

"I've read about that village. It's well hidden in an unknown nation, but it has a lot of strong shinobi within it," he spoke spoke. "Because of the most powerful family having been kagemushas, shadow controllers, the village is neither allied with ours, nor is it an enemy village. It's simply an outsider. How did you get in this village, then?"

She didn't answer, at first stunned by his knowledge of the Barakouge village, when she had forgotten all about it. However, she recognized this boy by his eyes. He was an heir to the Hyuga bloodline.

"Are you Hyuga Neji?" she asked.

He nodded, an she smiled at him.

"I'm Micamura Rika. It's nice to meet you," she spoke, and the boy smiled.

"What brings you to the Konoha village, Rika?" she looked at him, and didn't know how to answer.

However, he looked up at the sky, and sighed.

"I was supposed to have met my team an hour ago for training. Gai-sensei will kill me, now," he spoke.

She couldn't help but giggle at what he said.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"You remind me of something," she lied, and looked into his silver eyes.

She somehow felt compelled to them, so similar to her own, that if frightened her a bit. But she accepted it, and looked at him.

"Then I guess you should go meet your team, then," she said.

He nodded in agreement, but then hesitated.

"Why don't you come with me? You could meet a lot more people, and I'll be able to see what you're capable of if you're really from the Barakouge village," Neji spoke to her.

She didn't know what to say, but she had no choice but to agree...

* * *

Neji took her away from the bridge into the hills of the city where he knew his two teammates, Rock Lee and Tenten, were waiting for him, along with his sensei, Gai. He walked by Rika's side, seeing the emptiness and snow-coldness in her silver eyes, as well. Why were her eyes so cold like that? Why was she so quiet? As the two approached the hills, he could see his teammates waiting for him, but he didn't see Gai. Tenten ran towards Neji to greet him, but is startled to see the other girl, Rika. 

"Neji, who is this?" she asked.

Neji introduced Rika and then introduced his teammates to her. Rika said nothing, but just smiled shyly at them. She then, mysteriously, grasped his arm, but only briefly before she realized what she had done and pulled away. Neji was confused by her actions, but ignored it as, in a blast of smoke, his sensei appeared, holding similar, but more mature appearance as Lee. Gai-sensei sees the girl, and then questions Neji.

"Who is this young, lovely woman?" Gai asked in a charming way, winking in Rika's direction. However, she was unaffected by it.

"Gai-sensei, this is Micamura Rika," Neji introduced the girl.

Gai is immediately stanned and gasped.

"It cannot be! A Micamura? But how? That family has been eradicated by the Akatsuki clan!"

Neji and his teammates looked at Rika, who is blushing and looking down sadly. She had a lot of explaining to do.


End file.
